VirtueMart Login

Spark Models

Spark models was founded by Hugo Ripert, a car and model enthusiast who's father was in the modeling business before him. Hugo worked for Vitesse, Quartzo and Ixo where he was in charge of research and model development. In 2003, whilst still working for Ixo, Hugo started making the first Spark models of Le Mans cars.

From purely resin castings of car bodies Spark has moved into Zamak diecasting injection molding. Once a decision has been made to produce a particular car, measurements, drawings and photos are given to one of the craftsmen who then sculpt a prototype. Spark models are essentially serially produced hand built kits.

Spark Models was founded by Hugo's desire to model the entire grid of the Le Mans 24 hour race. Not just the winners and the best known cars already produced by other model manufactures.

Small production runs necessitate the use of resin, as tooling is much cheaper than for diecasting. This also has the advantage that it allows for modifying details on cars such as extra louvres and air intakes, wider wheel arches and different spoilers that change on any given real racing car as it appears at different circuits and in different years.

Many of the Spark Models are made in resin, a process that allows for reproduction of small detail changes representing the variations on real cars as they were developed from race to race and year to year. Some of these details are relatively obvious such as long tailed and short tailed versions. Others are more subtle and require closer observation and familiarity with the real cars to notice. These might consist of things like different air intakes, louvres, spoilers or wings.